


Come Home

by orpikjam44



Series: Come Home [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 05:21:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1102901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orpikjam44/pseuds/orpikjam44
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot can happen in a few years in Detroit, and none of it is easy to just <i>leave behind.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Home

It’s two AM and Stuie’s phone is ringing. Vibrating, about to fall off the nightstand. Stuie would stop it, but he’s still half-asleep and trying to comprehend what’s going on through a thick haze of sleep. With a thud, his phone hits the floor and Stuie jolts out of his stupor to snatch it up off the carpet.

He squints into the bright light, trying to read who the call was from. Before he can, it calls back. _Nik_. At two AM. Two AM Pacific time, which meant five AM in Detroit. Why.

“Nik,” he grunts into the phone. “It’s two AM. You called twice. Your house better be on fire. What’s happening?”

The response takes a second, but finally the voice on the other line, in that familiar Swedish accent, says, “Stuie, when are you coming home?”

Stuie rubs a hand over his eyes, blowing a sigh out through his nostrils. “Are you drunk or something?”

“No,” Nik says, shortly. Stuie can hear him huffing. He’s offended. Nothing new. “I’m not. I don’t do that.”

“Yes you do. I’m hanging up now, Nik. I’m home. In California. In bed. Sleeping. You’re home, in Michigan, hopefully in bed, because it’s five AM there.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll text you. Just... respond?” And he hangs up.

This doesn’t happen often, but it happened recently enough that Stuie can clearly picture the last time he was laying in his bed, his wife asleep next to him, waiting for a text from _Nik_ to come in. A text he wasn’t even sure he wanted to see. Was it at the beginning of the season? Maybe a few weeks in. Before that game in Colorado when Nik had suffered that concussion -- they’d talked a lot after that, then there had been a break in the late-night phone calls until now.

Stuie’s phone buzzed.

_“Stuie come home”_

Stuie closes his eyes. He’d spent three years coming home when he had played in Detroit, taking every opportunity to get back _home_ to his family in California. It had been really difficult, especially since there was also someone in Detroit he desperately wanted to be with in that time, too.

 _“I am home. Go to bed. Get some sleep. Goodnight, Nik,”_ he responds, dropping the phone on his chest and closing his eyes in a half-hearted attempt to kid himself into thinking he can ignore Nik. Don’t respond, don’t look at it when he--

The phone buzzes again.

From Nik. _“I’m home”_

Stuie scrunches up his face. _“Good. Now go to bed.”_ He waits for the response.

_“No. I’m home. I am home. Home is with me.”_

Stuie lets his eyelids drift shut. This isn’t the first time they’ve had this conversation, or at least something similar, since he had chosen to go back to San Jose a couple of seasons ago. His first reaction is to say something like, _That ship has sailed, Nik, I’m in California._ Or _Go to bed, move on._

But he can’t. Not only will saying something along those lines require a lot of emotional clean-up work and apology -- which he knows from past experiences -- but he doesn’t want to hurt Nik like that, even if it’s two AM and he’s not feeling terribly chipper.

The phone buzzes. _“Bradley”_

Stuie sighs. He can’t ignore it. He’s tried that method, and not just with messaging. It ends badly. _“I’ll visit. I’ll call. Don’t fret. Talk soon, sleep now for both of us.”_

_“E hates me”_

_“We’ll talk. Sleep. Go.”_

Stuie puts his phone on silent and drops it on the bedside table, squeezing his eyes shut so he can’t see it light up again. He wants to help his friend, he wants to talk to him and say something witty that will bring the laughter back into his voice, but he promised himself he wouldn’t get reinvested in Nik’s life again. Not now, not now that he’d left. He’s too far away for that now and he’s not getting involved in it again.

He’s been keeping in touch from afar, enough to know what’s going on, enough to know Nik’s feelings haven’t changed since Stuie first joined the Wings organization. It had happened fast for both of them, and three whole years together had seemed to end even faster. Damn, time had a funny way of working, didn’t it?


End file.
